The Power of the Past

At this point I know some of us are feeling the pull of old habits, and I don't necessarily mean the eating and drinking kind. It may very well be that we've kicked the coffee habit or learned to be mindful of what we're putting in our mouths, when and how much. Wonderful! But this is just a step on our path of mindfulness, not the "destination".

Through this process we've learned the power of habits in terms of our bodies and our food. We've seen how the mind has needs that are usually unrelated to what the body actually needs. This awakening has given us the ability to see that we're able to make choices about food and not be ruled by our perceived "needs" and our mind's habit patterns.

Food gave us a simplistic way to learn this. Applying it to the rest of life is the hard part. Just as our mind has habits about food, so too does it have "thinking" habits and patterns. One example is the response to a load of work that presents itself suddenly. Our habit pattern, cultivated over many years of stressing, is to get panicky, angry, resentful, nervous, distracted, overwhelmed and pessimistic. After a week of bliss, it may feel like a dark cloud floated over. I neglected all of my studio work, besides teaching, for all of last week. Sunday I had graduation obligations so Monday was Day 1 for getting back on track, and it was A LOT. Like an unwelcomed acquaintance dropping in for a sleep-over, I felt that habitual response to "too much" wash over me. I immediately felt exhausted, grouchy and pitiful. Then in that unbalanced and unproductive state of mind, of course I decided to tackle some questions about my business and focus on the parts of it that aren't working. When we're in that state of mind, we almost seem to seek out people, subjects, projects, etc that will FEED that state of mind, rather than change it. And this tends to lead to dark thoughts of, Who cares? Why bother, you can't win anyway...oh forget it...

I try SO hard to remind myself that just as this negative thought pattern was created, so too can a new thought pattern be created. It's just a matter of practice. Stopping the flow of the old first, noticing it, see what it does to us. Give it to the kula. Remind yourself that habits aren't created for us by someone else, they started in our minds which we've learned by cleansing that we can have control over, we can change, we are not in a permanent state. In the same way that I can control whether or not I eat a block of cheese for lunch instead of a salad, I can control whether I am defeated by dramatic, dark thoughts or see them for what they really are (a rotten old thought habit) and set about the hard work of changing them which I know to be absolutely possible, not easy, but possible. Nothing is permanent, including these thought habits.

Everything is workable. One thing is for sure, we'll be stuck in a cycle of darkness forever unless we decide to do something to change ourselves. We can't let ourselves be fooled into thinking some external event will change us. It's all inside...

Love and HOPE!
Gina